Decked Logs Will Be Sold Following Assessment

SEELEY LAKE – While the volume of timber harvested during the Rice Ridge Fire suppression efforts is still unknown, the Seeley Lake Ranger District is hoping to have the logs on trucks starting the end of this month. Since there is no National Environmental Policy Act process and no opportunity for litigation because it is still within the agencies' ability to act under an emergency situation, Seeley Lake District Ranger Rachel Feigley does not anticipate anything stopping the sale of the logs.

The log decks are a result of building indirect lines and shade fuel breaks.

"The way those decks are arranged in space and time was all based on the progress that these folks could make with the individual teams that were here and the equipment they had available," said Feigley.

When a processor was available and needed to remove the slash since it was a containment issue, the trees were limbed, cut to length and decked. When it wasn't available, or it wasn't critical to suppression operations, they just removed whole trees and stacked them.

"There is a variety of cut to length decks, full length processed logs in decks, decks of whole tree yarded logs that have not been processed, slash piles that are full of mostly non-merchantable [timber] but also piles of whole tree yarded [merchantable] and [non-merchantable] together, so that is what the assessment is all about."

Feigley said decks are scattered from the northwest corner of the fire throughout the burn area to the southeast corner of the fire from Doney Lake to the North Fork of the Blackfoot.

Contractors separated timber removed from federal, state and private lands. Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Inc. has already purchased and moved logs from the Blackfoot Community Conservation Area.

Feigley said they hope to have an estimated volume for saw and non-saw log products by early this week. The contract package will be available as soon as they compile the data and advertised for bid. She anticipates one-year contracts to give the purchaser flexibility.

"We recognize that there would be tradeoffs with [a one-year contract without stipulations] relative to our winter operations," said Feigley.

The Seeley Lake Ranger District does not receive the money earned from the sale. Instead it goes to the federal treasury.

Feigley said, "What we will see is the influx to the local purchaser that is spending that money in the community."

 

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